Richard's Blog

 Posts Tagged ‘Florida’

Therap will be hosting a Regional Conference in Florida December 4-5, 2012. The conference will be at the Palm Beach Airport Holiday Inn.

There will be specific sessions on agencies using Therap and working with APD.

Additional information will be available on our website in the coming months.

Therap will be hosting a conference in Atlanta, Georgia in June 2012 for Developmental Disability Providers. The developmental disability software conference will be June 5-6, 2012.

The conference will be at the Holiday Inn Atlanta/Roswell.

Additional information will be posted on the website concerning the conference.

This is part of an increasing amount of conferences and user groups in the Southeast.  For 2012 we already have Regional Conferences scheduled for Georgia, Tennessee and Florida.

Next year we are planning something like 25 different Therap conferences across the country. In addition to the National Conference in Feburary, this includes Regional Conferences and Side-by-Side Conferences with College of Direct Support.

There are a number of issues which go into choosing times and locations for conferences.  I am very conscious of keeping the cost of the hotels and airfare as low as possible. So for example the Florida Conference is in December in Orlando because the hotel said it was the lowest travel week of the year to Orlando and we were able to get a very low sleeping room rate for people. Apparently no school children travel to Disney halfway between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We also try to have only one or two Therap conferences the same week. There is a limit on Therap team members who can run sessions at the conferences. There is one week this year where we have conference in Oregon, Nebraska and New York the same week. We have the conference sessions covered, but we try and avoid three conferences the same time.

One issue in planning which has occurred recently is planning around holidays.  How far from holidays can a conference be run. For example we ran the New Mexico conference the Wednesday and Thursday after Memorial Day. That seems ok – as people were able to use the Tuesday to drive if needed.

I was just informed that the tentative date for the North Dakota conference was the day after Fathers Day and I will try and switch it to Tuesday and Wednesday so people don’t have to leave their families on the holiday.

We have tried to avoid the Thursday before Labor Day – but have felt a Tuesday and Wednesday conference the week before Labor Day would be ok.

Holidays are a time to spend with families for both patriotic and religious reasons. As we are running more conferences we are trying to be aware of holidays and customs around the country.

There are parts of the country where we would want people to have the day to spend with their family when hunting season begins. But for example just in looking at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources website there is not just one website. There are seasons for bear, deer, pheasant, grouse and more – and in fact even a archery season for deer.

I know that sometimes when scheduling conference 6-12 months in advance we make a mistake. I mistakenly put our Oregon conference on Veteran’s Day this year. When signing up a conference and asking for the 2nd Wednesday and Thursday of a month -I didn’t focus on the specific number and Veteran’s Day is always November 11. As opposed to Thanksgiving which changes the date but is always the 4th Thursday of November.  I apologize for this scheduling and hope to avoid this mistake in the future.

If people have other thoughts and questions on how and why our conferences are scheduled when they are – I would be happy to discuss.

I will be attending the 2011 HIMSS national conference at the Orlando Conference Center in Florida in February.

There are approximately 20,000 people who attend this conference.
I am particularly looking forward to attending their sessions regarding HIPAA compliance issues and CCHIT and electronic health issues.

CCHIT is the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology. These are federal requirements for certification.

Therap is working towards 2011 certification.  We have announced that a conference for December 2011 in Florida which will cover Therap and Meaningful Use and CCHIT issues.

Therap will have a Therap Regional Conference in Kissimmee, FL on December 6-7, 2011. The conference will also be a Therap National Conference on CCHIT and Meaningful Use.

The conference will be at the Holiday Inn Main Gate East. If you book using the Therap group rate the hotel is $59 a night.  I have been told this is one of the slowest travel weeks of the year, so airfares should hopefully also be low. There are shuttles (for a fee) from Orlando Airport.

More information on CCHIT and Meaningful Use will be provided during the year.

This conference will have special discussions on Florida and APD related issues.

As with all Therap conferences we urge you to look at the agenda (to be published later) to determine the right conference for you and your agency.  This conference will have 3 or 4 simultaneous sessions. The Therap national provider administration conference next month in Fishkill will have between 10 and 15 simultaneous sessions.  The Florida conference will have more limited user presentations and discussions regarding the applications.

There will be a specific to be announced agenda on topics related to Therap’s applications and  CCHIT and Meaningful use.